The European Network for Short Fiction Research was established in 2013 with the aim of fostering and promoting the study of short fiction in European universities and in interaction with short fiction writers. After an inaugural meeting early in 2014, the ENSFR has organized annual conferences as well as sponsored several other study days and events. This website aims to be an interactive platform for sharing research, expertise, ideas and information about short fiction in its diversity of linguistic traditions and forms.

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The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS) requests proposals for papers and presentations at an international symposium to be held in New Orleans, September 5-7, 2019, at the Hotel Monteleone. This venue has been enormously popular with ALA members in part because this outstanding hotel is located in the heart of the French Quarter and virtually all of the literary locations in the city are within walking distance. Double rooms are $175 at the conference rate.Read More →

Borders, Intersections and Identity in the Contemporary Short Story in English is a conference organised by the Research Project Intersections: Gender and Identity in the Short Fiction of Contemporary British Women Writers (FEDER/AEI – FEM2017-83084-P) and the Research Group Discourse and Identity (GRC2015/002, GI_1924) in affiliation with the ENSFR (European Network for Short Fiction Research). The conference is to be held at the Faculty of Philology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, on 23 and 24 May, 2019.Read More →

We are pleased to announce the publication of Bettina Jansen’s new book, Narratives of Community in the Black British Short Story, which has just come out with Palgrave. More details can be found here.Read More →

The concept of adolescence, which emerged in a 19th-century occidental context, has evolved towards the birth of “the teenage group as a specific age in life” (C. Cannard, 2012). Several research projects have dealt with the cultural landscape of adolescents (a broader term than “teenager”, both of which are worth exploring), yet the specific articulations of adolescence and short forms have mostly remained uncharted. Moreover, while academic research on short forms and childhood has been carried out, these forms have rarely been addressed in the context of young adulthood.Read More →

Sound is being celebrated as a source of insight in the humanities, yet so far no study has been produced that focuses exclusively on sound in/and short, short short, very short and flash fiction. This ENSFR-affiliated conference aims to close that gap.Read More →

Call for Papers is now open for “Short Fiction as Humble Fiction“, a conference organised by EMMA (Etudes Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone) with ENSFR (European Network for Short Fiction Research) on 17-18-19 October 2019 at Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier3, France. Keynote speakers: Elke D’hoker (K.U. Leuven, Belgium) and Ann-Marie Einhaus (Northumbria University, UK) The title of this conference may sound like a provocative statement. It may suggest a definition of the genre as a minor one, as has too often been the case in the history of the short story. Yet the conference has another purpose altogether. We would like to reverse the perspective and claimRead More →

Short narrative texts have a long and ancient lineage in the Western literary tradition: from ancient folk tales and myths over fables and novellas to short stories and flash fiction in recent times. Over the course of the centuries, short fictional texts have formed genres and traditions with a remarkable stability, yet at the same time they frequently have been the locus of experimentation, border crossings and generic hybridity, often in tandem with the spread of media and the development of new contexts of publication and dissemination. In modern literature, it suffices to think of the importance of short fiction for the development of fantasticRead More →

This essay collection aims to bring together and represent the growing body of research into the close ties between the modern short story and magazine culture in the period 1880-1950 in Britain and Ireland.Read More →

Since the turn of the twentieth-century, Irish fiction has seen innovation and experimentation on many different fronts. Many novelists have pushed the boundaries of the novel form and also the Irish short story is being rewritten along new lines. It is in this respect telling that the Goldsmiths Prize for innovative fiction has, since its inception in 2013, already been awarded to three Irish novelists and that many other Irish writers have won major prizes such as the Booker Prize, the Costa Award, and the BBC short story award. To get a sense of the variety of innovation and experimentation that is going on inRead More →

George Saunders’ Pastoralia: Bookmarked , by Charles Holdefer – New York: Ig Publishing (ISBN-13: 978-1632460639; $14.95 paperback; £10.89 ; €13.11) George Saunders’ 2000 short story collection, Pastoralia, is an exaggerated and darkly humorous satire on American life at the turn of the twenty-first century, merging the spirit of James Thurber with the world of the Simpsons. In his entry in Ig’s acclaimed Bookmarked series, award-winning author Charles Holdefer addresses how this collection, and the writing of Saunders, influenced his journey as an author.Read More →